Exploring Literature : Writing and Thinking about Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay Book

ALTERNATIVE CONTENTS BY GENRE.

Preface.

I. MAKING CONNECTIONS.

l. Participation: Personal Response and Critical Thinking.
The Personal Dimension of Reading Literature.
Personal Response and Critical Thinking.
Writing to Learn.
Keeping a Journal or Reading Log.
Double-Entry Journals and Logs.
The Social Nature of Learning: Collaboration.
Personal, Not Private.
Ourselves as Readers.
Different Kinds of Reading.

Peter Meinke, Advice to My Son.
Images of Ourselves.

Stevie Smith, Not Waving, But Drowning.
Culture, Experience, and Values.

Countee Cullen, Incident.

Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays.

Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll.
The Whole and Its Parts.
Participating, Not Solving.
Being in the Moment.

Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham.
Imagining Is Believing.

2. Communication: Writing About Literature.
The Response Essay.
Voice and Writing.
Voice and Response to Literature.

Sandra Cisneros, Eleven.

Anna Quindlen, Mothers.

Langston Hughes, Salvation.
Writing to Describe.
Choosing Details.
Choosing Details from Literature.
Writing to Compare.
Comparing and Contrasting Using a Venn Diagram.
Possible Worlds.
Response to Literature: Describing and Comparing.
Staying Anchored in a Work of Literature.
Checklist: Developing a Response Essay.
From First Response to Final Draft.
Using First Responses.
Extending Ideas.
Semantic Mapping, or Clustering.
Mix and Match.
Collaboration.
The Response Essay: Composing a Draft.
Deirdre's Draft.
Revision.
Organization and Unity.
Showing Support.
Clarity.
Voice.
Checklist: Revision.
Checklist: Editing and Proofreading.
Deirdre's Revised Essay.

II. ANALYSIS, ARGUMENTATION, AND RESEARCH.

3. Exploration and Analysis: Genre and the Elements of Literature.
Your First Response.
Checklist: Your First Response.
Close Reading.
Annotating the Text.
First Annotation: Exploration.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias.
Second Annotation: Analysis.
Literature in Its Many Contexts.
Your Critical Approach.
Interpretive Communities.
Reading and Analyzing Fiction.
Fiction and Truth.
Narration.
Point of View.
Voice.
Reliability.
Checklist: Narration.
Setting.
Location.
Atmosphere.
Checklist: Setting.
Conflict and Plot.
Internal and External Conflict.
Conflict and Characterization.
Plot.
Checklist: Conflict and Plot.
Character.
Checklist: Character.
Language and Style.
Diction.
Symbol.
Checklist: Language and Style.
Theme.
Theme or Moral?
Checklist: Theme.
Summary Checklist: Analyzing Fiction.
Getting Ideas for Writing about Fiction.

Langston Hughes, One Friday Morning.
Reading and Analyzing Poetry.
Language and Style.
Denotation and Connotation.
Voice.
Tone.

Stephen Crane, War Is Kind.
Imagery.

Helen Chassin, The Word 'Plum'.

Robert Browning, Meeting at Night.
Figurative Language: Everyday Poetry.

Langston Hughes, A Dream Deferred.

N. Scott Momaday, Simile.

Carl Sandburg, Fog.

H.D. Oread.

James Stephens, The Wind.
Symbol.

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken.

Tess Gallagher, The Hug.
Checklist: Language and Style.
Sound and Structure.
Finding the Beat: Limericks.
Rhyme, Alliteration, Assonance.
Meter.
Formal Verse: The Sonnet.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet #29.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Love Is Not All.
Blank Verse.
Free Verse.

Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer.
Checklist: Sound and Structure.
Interpretation: What Does the Poem Mean?
Explication.
Theme or Moral.
Checklist: Interpretation and Theme.
Types of Poetry.
Lyric Poetry.
Narrative Poetry.
Summary Checklist: Analyzing Poetry.
Getting Ideas for Writing about Poetry.

May Swenson, Pigeon Woman.
Reading and Analyzing Drama.
Reading a Play.
Point of View.
Checklist: Point of View.
Set and Setting.
Checklist: Set and Setting.
Conflict and Plot.
Internal and External Conflict.
Conflict and Characterization.
Plot.
The Poetics.
Tragedy.
Comedy.
Checklist: Conflict and Plot.
Character.
Checklist: Characterization.
Language and Style.
Diction.
Symbol.
Checklist: Language and Style.
Theme.
Theme or Moral.
Checklist: Theme.
Periods of Drama: A Brief Background.
Greek Drama.
Shakespearian Drama.
Staging and Acting.
Audience Participation.
Modern Drama.
Staging and Acting.
Audience Participation.
The Language and Style of the Script.
Summary Checklist: Analyzing Drama.
Getting Ideas for Writing about Drama.

Sophocles, Antigone.
Reading and Analyzing the Essay.
Types of Essays.
Narrative.
Expository.
Argumentative.
Checklist: Types of Essays.
Language, Style, and Structure.
Formal or Informal.
Voice.
Word Choice and Style.
Checklist: Language, Style, and Structure.
Theme or Thesis: What's the Point?
Inform, Preach, or Reveal.
Checklist: Theme or Thesis.
Summary Checklist: Analyzing Essays.

Amy Tan, Mother Tongue.
Generating Ideas for Writing.

4. Argumentation: Interpreting and Evaluating.
The Critical Essay.
Choosing a Topic: Process and Product.
Writing to Analyze or Explicate.
Writing to Compare.
Writing about the Beliefs or Actions of the Narrator or Characters.
Writing about Literature in Context.
Checklist: Choosing a Topic for a Critical Essay.
Critical Thinking: Induction and Substantiation.
Developing Standards.
Thinking Critically about Literature.
Facts and Opinions.

John Updike, Ex-Basketball Player.
Interpretation: What Does It Mean?
A Defensible Interpretation, Not the Right Answer.
Developing an Interpretation.
Language and Form.
Narration: Point of View and Voice.
Setting.
Conflict and Plot.
Characterization.
The Whole: Theme.
Beliefs or Actions Expressed by the narrator or Characters.
The Work in Context.
Checklist: Developing an Interpretation.
Interpretation or Evaluation?
Evaluation: How Well Does It Work?
Developing Standards.
Developing Standards for Evaluating Literature.
Your Own Standards: Expectations and Intentions.
Standards for Evaluating Literature.
Checklist: Developing an Evaluation.
Argumentation: Writing a Critical Essay.
The Shape of an Argument.
Planning Your Argument.
Supporting Your Argument.
Opening, Closing, and Revising Your Argument.
Checklist: Writing a Critical Essay.
From First Response to Critical Essay.
The Development of a Critical Essay.
Planning An Argument.
Supporting the Argument.
Suzanne's Draft.
Opening, Closing, and Revising.
Suzanne's Revised Essay.

5. Research and Documentation: Writing with Secondary Sources.
Creating, Expanding, Joining, Interpretative Communities.
It Is Your Interpretation.
Integrating Sources into Your Writing.
The "I-Search" Option.
Group Research Projects.
Getting Started.
Use Journal Entries, Notes, and Consult Your Classmates.
Some Popular Areas of Literary Research.
Your Search.
People.
The Library.
The On-Line Public Access Catalog.
Reference Works.
The Internet and the World Wide Web.
Evaluating Internet Sources.
Checklist: Evaluating Internet Sources.
Taking Notes.
Paraphrasing and Summarizing.
Quoting.
Review.
Documentation—Some Basics.
What Must Be Documented.
Where and How.
Avoid Plagiarism.
The Physical Layout of the Research Essay.
Documentation—MLA Style.
Citing Sources in the Text of the Essay.
Works Cited Documentation.
Electronic Sources.
Other Sources.
Sample Works Cited.
From First Response to Research Essay.
Checklist: Writing a Research Essay.
A Sample Research Essay.

III. A THEMATIC ANTHOLOGY.

Family and Friends.
A Dialogue Across History.
Family and Friends: Exploring Your Own Values and Beliefs.
Reading and Writing about Family and Friends.

Fiction.

Chinua Achebe, Marriage Is a Private Affair.

James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues.

Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible.

D.H. Lawrence, The Horse Dealer's Daughter.

Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing.

Luigi, War.

Two Readers, Two Choices.
Exploring A&P.

John Updike, A&P.
Two Sample Student Essays.

Eudora Welty, A Worn Path.

Poetry.

Julie Alvarez, Dusting.

Judith Ortiz Cofer, My Father in the Navy: A Childhood Memory.

Robert Frost, Mending Wall.

Elizabeth Gaffney, Losses that Turn Up in Dreams.

Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa.

Seamus Heaney, Digging.
Midterm Break.

Philip Larkin, This Be the Verse.

Michael Lassell, How To Watch Your Brother Die.

Li-Young Lee, The Gift.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Lament.

Janice Mirikatani, For My Father.

Sharon Olds, 35/10.

Linda Pastan, Marks.

Theodore Roethke, My Papa's Waltz.

Cathy Song, The Youngest Daughter.

Paul Zimmer, Zimmer in Grade School.

Drama.

Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie.

Essays.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, From Father with Love.

Maxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman.

Mark Twain, Advice to Youth.
Case Studies in Composition: Thinking about Interpretation and Biography.

Lorraine Hansberry and A Raisin in the Sun.

Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun.
In Her Own Words.
In Others' Words.

James Baldwin, Sweet Lorraine.

Julius Lester, The Heroic Dimension in A Raisin in the Sun.

Anne Cheney, The African Heritage in A Raisin in the Sun.

Steven R. Carter, Hansberry's Artistic Misstep.

Margaret B. Wilkerson, Hansberry's Awareness of Culture and Gender.

Michael Anderson, A Raisin in the Sun: A Landmark Lesson in Being Black.
A Student Essay.
Exploring the Literature of Family and Friends: Options for Writing and Research.

Women and Men.
A Dialogue Across History.
Women and Men: Exploring Your Own Values and Beliefs.
Reading and Writing about Women and Men.

Fiction.

Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog.

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour.

William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Cinderella.

Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper.

James Joyce, Araby.

Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh.

Rosario Morales, The Day It Happened.

Poetry.

Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman.

Margaret Atwood, You Fit Into Me.

Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover.

John Donne, The Flea.

Judy Gran, Ella, in a Square Apron, Along Highway 80.

A.E. Housman, When I was One-and-twenty.

Maxine Kumin, After Love.

Christopher Marlowe, A Passionate Shepherd To His Love.

Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.

Sharon Olds, Sex Without Love.

Sylvia Plath, Mirror.

Walter Raleigh, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.

Adrienne Rich, Rape.

Alberto Rios, The Purpose of Altar Boys.

Anne Sexton, Cinderella.

William Shakespeare, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day? (Sonnet No. 18).

My Mistress's Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet No. 130).

When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth (Sonnet No. 138).

Drama.
Two Readers, Two Choices.
Exploring Othello.

William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice.
Two Sample Student Essays.

Wendy Wasserstein, The Man in a Case.

Essays.

Bruno Bettleheim, Cinderella.

Judy Brady, I Want a Wife.

Sei Shononogan, A Lover's Departure.

Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mother's Garden.

Virginia Woolf, If Shakespeare Had a Sister.
Case Studies in Composition: Thinking about Interpretation in Cultural and Historical Contexts.

Henrik Ibsen, and A Doll's House.

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House.
Women in Cultural and Historical Context.

The Adams Letters.

A Husband's letter to His Wife (1844).

Sojourner Truth, Ain't I a Woman?

Henrik Ibsen, Notes for the Modern Tragedy.

The Changed Ending of A Doll's House for a German Production.

Speech at the Banquet of the Norwegian League for Women's Rights.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Excerpt from The Solitude of Self.

Wilbur Fisk Tillett, Excerpt from Southern Womanhood.

Dorothy Dix,, "The American Wife" and "Women and Suicide".

Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman), Excerpt from Women and Economics".

Natalie Zemon Davis and Jill Ker Conway, The Rest of the Story (1999).
Student Essay.
Exploring the Literature of Women and Men: Options for Writing and Research.

Heritage and Identity.
A Dialogue Across History.
Heritage and Identity: Exploring Your Own Experiences and Beliefs.
Reading and Writing about Heritage and Identity.

Fiction.

Julia Alvarez, Snow.

Willa Cather, Paul's Case.

Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal.

Jamaica Kincaid, Girl.

Alice Munro, Boys and Girls.

Frank O'Connor, My Oedipus Complex.

Amy Tan, Two Kinds.
Two Readers, Two Choices.
Exploring "Everyday Use".

Alice Walker, Everyday Use.
Two Student Essays.

Poetry.

Sherman Alexie, On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City.

Gloria Anzuldúa, To Live in the Borderlands Means You.

Margaret Atwood, This Is a Photograph of Me.

W.H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen.

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool.

e.e. cummings, anyone live in a pretty how town.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask.

T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Martin Espada, Late Night at the Pawn Shop.

Langston Hughes, I, Too.

Claude McKay, America.

Pat Mora, Immigrants.

William Wordsworth, Composed on Westminster Bridge. September 3, 1802.

Mitsuyi Yamada, The Question of Loyalty.

William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

Drama.

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex.

Essays.

Maya Angelou, Graduation in Stamps.

Joan Didion, Why I Write.

Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream.

Neil Miller, In Search of Gay America: Ogilivie, Minnesota (Population 374).

May Sarton, The Rewards of Living the Solitary Life.
Case Studies in Composition: Thinking about Interpretation and Performance.
William Shakespeare and Hamlet.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Interpretation and Performance.
Multiple Interpretations of Hamlet.
Desperately Seeking Hamlet: Four Interpretations.
From Part to Whole From Whole to Part.
Student Essay—Explication and Analysis.
Exploring the Literature of Heritage and Identity: Options for Writing and Research.

Culture and Class.
A Dialogue Across History.
Culture and Class: Exploring Your Own Values and Beliefs.
Reading and Writing about Culture and Class.

Fiction.

Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson.

Robert Olen Butler, Snow.

John Cheever, The Enormous Radio.

Liliana Hecker, The Stolen Party.

Flannery O'Connor, Everything that Rises Must Converge.

Estela Portillo Trambley, The Pilgrim.

Leslie Marmon Silko, The Man to Send Rain Clouds.

Poetry.

William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper.

>London.

Wanda Coleman, Sweet Mama Wanda Tells Fortunes for a Price.

Billy Collins, Victoria's Secret.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Constantly Risking Absurdity.

Robert Francis, Pitcher.

Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed.
Two Readers, Two Choices.
Exploring "Theme for English B".

Langston Hughes, Theme for English B.
Two Student Essays.

Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica.

Marianne Moore, Poetry.

Marge Piercy, To Be of Use.

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory.

Mr. Flood's Party.

Wole Soyinka, Telephone Conversation.

Jean Toomer, Reapers.

William Carlos Williams, At the Ball Game.

Drama.

Susan Glaspell, Trifles.

August Wilson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

Luis Valdez, Los Vendidos.

Essays.

Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Write.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Documented/Undocumented.

Richard Rodriguez, Workers.

Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal.
Case Study in Composition: Thinking about Interpretation, Culture, and Research.
James Joyce and Eveline.

James Joyce, Eveline.
Interpretation, Culture, and Research.
Prof. Devenish's Commentary.
Student Essay—Research and Culture.
Exploring the Literature of Culture and Class: Options for Writing and Research.

Faith and Doubt.
A Dialogue Across History.
Faith and Doubt: Exploring Your Own Values and Beliefs.
Reading and Writing about Faith and Doubt.

Fiction.

Thomas Bulfinch, The Myth of Daedalus and Icarus.

Raymond Carver, Cathedral.

Stephen Crane, The Open Boat.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown.

Luke, The Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried.

Philip Roth, The Conversion of the Jews.

John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums.

Poetry.

Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach.

Elizabeth Bishop, In the Waiting Room.

Stephen Crane, A Man Said to the Universe.

Emily Dickinson, Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant.

After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense.

There's a Certain Slant of Light.

She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms.

Robert Frost, Fire and Ice.

Out, out.

A.E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young.

Galway Kinnell, from The Dead Shall Be Raised Incorruptible.

Yusef Komunyakka, Facing It.

Amy Lowell, Patterns.

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est.

Carl Sandburg, Grass.

Dylan Thomas, The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.

John Updike, The Mosquito.

James Wright, A Blessing.

Paul Zimmer, The Day Zimmer Lost Religion.

Drama.

David Mamet, Oleanna.

Terrence McNally, Andre's Mother.

Essays.
Two Readers, Two Choices.
Exploring Sight into Insight.

Annie Dillard, Sight into Insight.
Two Sample Student Essays.

Henry David Thoreau, from Journal.

E.B. White, Once More to the Lake.
Case Studies in Composition: Thinking about Interpretation, Poetry, and Painting.

Peter Brueghel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.

W.H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts.

Alan Devenish, Icarus Again.

Jacopo Tintoretto, Crucifixion.

N. Scott Momaday Before an Old Painting of the Crucifixion.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks.

David Ray, A Midnight Diner by Edward Hopper.

Samuel Yellen, Nighthawks.

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night.

Anne Sexton, The Starry Night.

Jan Vermeer, The Loveletter.

Sandra Nelson, When a Woman Holds a Letter.

Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist.

Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar.

Edwin Romanzo Elmer, Mournng Picture.

Adrienne Rich, Mourning Picture.
A Student's Comparison and Contrast Essay: Process and Product.
A Student Essay—Comparison and Contrast.
Exploring the Literature of Faith and Doubt: Options for Writing and Research.

Appendix: Critical Approaches to Literature.

Glossary.

Literary and Photo Credits.

Index of Author Names, Titles, And First Lines Of Poetry.

Index of Terms.